Get Your Students Hired
Retention is a big issue in the career institute. all this schools are for profit organization. For them to survive they need students and keep them till completion of the course. For the instructors if they also needs to be involved in the retention process then it is a problem. Instructors will try everything to keep them in school. Make them pass the class even they fail. Will give them attendance even they did not come to the class to maintain their percentage.
So, it is better retention process to be done by the advisors or career service dept.
Hi Rick,
Nicely stated! Students have to be in it for the long haul and work diligently so that they can obtain the career they want and not just have another dead end job. Students need to realize to much is given, much is required. It takes hard work to work toward a career. Anyone can get a job, but it takes discipline to secure a career!
Patricia Scales
Hi Dave,
Never sacrifice standard to save a student. Give students the grades they have earned.
Patricia Scales
Now that my last rant is done... students are customers in a way. They are paying to get something in return. We are giving knowledge in return and hopefully a career they will have most of their lives. It's true that not all our students will end up choosing to do this for a career but, isn't that their decision? We aren't dealing with children. If they decide they want to try this as a career path and then feel it's not right for them that is up to them. If they pay to come here I will give them the most I can, what they do with it is their doing. Remember the story "To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, each according to his ability... The one who had received five talents went off and put his money to work and gained five more. In the same way, the one who had two gained two more. But the one who had received one talent went out and… You could think of the talents as knowledge. We give it to them what they do is on them. If you go to Harvard for two years and then decide you want to open a hotdog stand, you still owe Harvard for those two years.
I work at a "for profit school" and our company does tie our "merit" raises to retention along with other things, although retention is one of the bigger percentages. However, I personally know of no instructor here that would force a student through when they don't pass a class. I do know a few instructors have been fired when caught changing scores. I was surprised when it happened, so maybe there is more doing it I just don't know about them. We do have checks and balances to try to counter act that. After all it's all our jobs if we start doing that. Look at the trouble Corinthian College is in for just those kinds of things. Everyone teaching here that I deal with is dedicated to the student. Everyone does their best to educate the student to give them every opportunity to succeed in their field. If I thought this school was doing that I would quit.
Hi Patricia:
I would tend to agree with that. I think students who are paying the money want to be there. There are scores of lawsuits out there where for-profit colleges are not doing what they are advertising and the easy thing for them is to lower the standards, thinking that students will just pass through the system.
But that's not the right way to do it. Students need to step up and instructors need to tell them where they need to step. Because, people don't attend college to get knowledge (surprisingly), they attend school because they need a job, see career training as a way to get that job, and then go to school, to get the skills, so they can get that job.
The breakpoint though is when students are unwilling to do what it takes to get to those standards. We have all had those students who don't want to come to class, don't want to do their homework, and don't want to do what it takes to get those skills in their head - because the only thing they are thinking about is paying the bills. I see it when I withdraw students who were eager at first, but then wash out because they got a crappy job that's basically paying the bills.
It really comes down to reminding students that we are CAREER colleges, not job schools. A career transcends the job - it's what you do for 20 years, not 6 months.
/rab
Hi Rick,
I have found that most students do not want the easy way out. They want to be thoroughly prepared for the workforce. At my institution, we do not sacrifice standards to save a student. A student is given a quality education at a very high level, and the student is held accountable 100 percent. You really get from students what you expect. We need to make our students rise to the bar. Set the standard high!
Patricia Scales
Shah:
As a program supervisor for a computer program, I will tell you that the regulators and accreditation bodies like ACCSC have raised the bar with respect to the standards within career colleges. this line of thinking is precisely what they are looking for and the colleges that continue to think this way are going to find themselves losing their accreditations and shuttering their doors.
it's becoming increasingly apparent that schools in the for-profit world are more interested in making profit then they are in the education of students. accreditation organizations like ACCSC have raise their standards in preparation for actions taken against schools that refuse to look at student outcome rather than profit.
I would really recommend to you that you change your line of thinking in this regard. Perhaps you're under a lot of pressure to retain students and to make sure that seats are filled with in your classroom. but I would be very deeply concerned for your management team if the directive even hints to compromising your educational standards for the sake of retention.
Compromising your classroom standards is not the way to go. Instructors can increase retention within their classrooms by providing quality instruction. the students come to your school to pay for an education. If they are getting what they paid for then they will stay. But if you compromise your standards in your classroom, students will see that even the highly-achieving students will see that and they will just simply quit out of frustration. You are doing yourself no favors for this kind of compromise.
Student retention is everyone's job, not just Admissions or Career Services or the rest of the staff. This means its your job too. But you retain students by giving them the rigorous education that they paid for. If an instructor cannot do that, that instructor needs to find a new line of work.
Increase the quality of your education and you will find the retention of a lot easier than you think.
/rab
Hi Shah,
Wow! At my institution we do not sacrifice standards to save a student to help retention. They get the grade they earn, and their attendance is marked accordingly.
Patricia Scales